


The Eleventh Hour

by Lucem_Tenebrae



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Timelines, Communism, Crossing Timelines, Dubious Morality, F/M, Fascism, Major Original Character(s), Mercenaries, Military Operations, Original Character(s), Original Universe, Parallel Universes, Political Satire, Pseudoscience, Science, Temporal Protection and Preservation Society, Time Travel, Trust me it's pretty cool, okay?, scifi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 17:33:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6018679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucem_Tenebrae/pseuds/Lucem_Tenebrae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For every major choice, a timeline is changed forever, its ripple effects creating new timelines and affecting preexisting ones. The right sized calamity could alter the entire multiverse; the agents of the Temporal Protection and Preservation Society are those who keep the various branches of the cosmic tree stable. For a hefty price, of course. Drawing in operatives from across all of space-time, this is the story of various squads and officers, coming from worlds both alike and utterly different, banding together to halt a growing threat: an entity powerful enough not to alter timelines, but to destroy them entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Eleventh Hour

**Author's Note:**

> Just an introductory chapter, short and chalked full of exposition. And yes. The three revealed protagonists (there will be more) are indeed believers in a certain ideology that many vehemently dislike, although its form is ifferent from their world. This is in not necessarily a reflection of my own politics; I'm merely exploring the gray morality of human ideology.

 

"Reich 5-1, do you copy, Reich 5-1?" comes the voice of static on the radio.

"Loud and clear, Clocktower," responds the mestizo man as he cautiously steps around the broken glass upon the floor. The room is dark and stuffy, every window shattered, and the slightest creak of metal can be heard as a lamp swings above him.

"Just what in hell are we supposed to be looking for?" comes the voice of another man following behind. His accent is distinctly of Germanic descent, but the precise identity of his mother tongue is difficult to discern. The group's third enters behind him, saying nothing, but whose eyes conveyed his own impatience.

"Avram, shut the fuck up. We all want to get home, I don't need your bitching in my ears," gripes the first man, who then quiets himself as the radio crackles back to life.

"Reich 5-1, you are to move in and eliminate the stagnant located within the next room. Stag is an Asian male, twenty-eight years old, red mohawk. He will be with five to ten other members of Taiping; all of which are fodders. If you fail, the TL will face divergence, and we will not be able to pull you out before tac-purge." The woman on the other end pauses. "Don't fuck this up, Ward."

"Understood, Clocktower. Leibowitz, on me. Al-Hamdan, you've got knock duty."

The Arab moves to the door and, using the butt of his rifle, smashes the lock and doorknob. With a light push, the wooden barrier swings open. He leans back into the room as the two others move into the next, weapons at the ready, before following in behind them. Another empty and decrepit chamber lies before them, with a door on each wall.

"You have to be kidding me. We deployed in the wrong part of the building, Rico," gripes Avram.

"If I have to tell you to shut up one more time..."

"You'll what? Shoot me?"

"I do have a taser, you damn Ashk--"

"Quiet!" the silent third suddenly hisses. Stepping from the center, where the group had gathered, he goes towards the left-most door.

"What is it, Ghaith?" Rico inquires, mind focusing back on the mission. The man in question says nothing, and the other two merely nod at each other and follow close. A flurry of Yue can be heard on the other side of the door. A squeaking fan can also be made out between the voices, explaining the men's ignorance to the squad's presence.

Rico holds up his hand, fingers splayed out. When the last digit falls into a fist, Ghaith busts the lock as he had previously, and his compatriots merely kick the door open as they begin firing on the angry and startled Chinese fellows within. At the head of the table, in the seventh chair, sits a man with a red mohawk. Before he can even give an order, a bullet lodges itself into his skull.

**Φ**

As the once conspirators of a terror attack lay dead, Rico surveys the room in full. He notices a votive candle burning beside a depiction of Hong Xiuquan. A sneer of disdain crosses his face as he strides over, promptly killing the flame with a pinch. Finding nothing else of note, Rico says into his radio, "Clocktower, this is Reich 5-1. Stag is terminated. We're ready for deluge."

With a sound akin to the splash of water, the three men simply cease to exist.

**Φ**

Rico gasps heavily as his eyes open within the bright room, as if he had just come up for air from beneath an ocean. A shiver ran through him too, but not a single drop of water was upon his person. Avrum and Ghaith did the same, the lab technicians stepping forward to help keep the men on their feet.

A rather rotund scientist approaches them with a bored look. "Do you feel any sort of heat in you limbs?" he asked tiredly.

"Nope."

"Nothing."

"No, sir."

"Blindness?"

"I can see."

"Nothing close to blind."

"No, sir."

With one last sigh, the scientist puts away his pen. "Last question, as per usual: Can you recall time the country and the timeline from which you originate?"

"National Socialist Republics of America, TL-81123."

"Jewish Kritarchy of Khazaria, TL-81123"

"The Arab Ba'ath State, TL-what-they-said."

"Alright. Hit the showers and report for debriefing at 2100 hours," the man drones out, turning on his heel to get back to his desk.

The three men lumber off, cracking jokes as they head to the showering chambers. "He said no one would ever buy my French accent. So I said, 'Then bullets must really be magic then!'" Rico finishes as they all begin to shed their gear and clothes.

"I heard their increasing observational duty. Looking from afar, only going to places with divergences that have slow tac-purges, strict rules on interactions with natives. Feh! Talk about a _kholerye_ assignment," the Jewish man gossips.

"Hmmm...I don't know. It might be nice to try that. No violence, pure observation. No interfering with people's lives. It'd be nice to go on a mission unarmed, at least. I certainly would feel less on edge. Bored, but less on edge," Ghaith says with contemplation.

Rico chuckles. "Don't worry, boys. We're the best team on the whole damn station. I doubt they'll be giving us birdwatching duty, but I bet they'd give us one if we asked for a break. I can tell you one thing though; it's the fucking Commies that're getting those missions in droves. With their level of competence, I finally get why it's called the Commintern. Sure as shit isn’t anything professional about them."

The trio chuckles as the warm water turns on and they take various places at nozzles they claim as their own. Rico stretches as the water calms him, the wings of his Reichsadler tattoo shifting with his shoulders, the symbol in its claws compressing and stretching; if one were to look in careful detail, they would notice the eagle’s head not only to be of a different design, but facing the wrong direction, and that the chest bore a shield of thirteen stripes, a larger one running horizontal at the top, and that the symbol was not a swastika, but a square and compass. A proper swastika rested at the small of his back. Tattoos on his mind, the young commander motions at Avram. "Hey, is that fasces on your forearm new?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, it is. I got it a couple days ago actually. I could have sworn I told both of you about it. I remember you guys being there, actually. Wait, I think it was just you, Ghaith. Yeah, that's right. You were getting your _takbir_ redone, and they were trying to wax your chest."

"I still think they could've done it without that. I only wanted two parts of it darkened," the burly man grumbled, rubbing at the black disk of ink over his heart, hair already beginning to cover it up.

“Ha! Well what do you boys think about this for my next one; a Mary’s Cross right here,” he says, turning towards his compatriots and putting a hand over his heart, “with the words ‘ _Deo Vindice_ ’ over top, and ‘ _Annuit Cœptis_ ’ on the bottom. I dunno, I was just talking to my mother the other day and I realized I had missed Lent, and I figured maybe I should try and put some more emphasis on my faith in my life, yknow?”

Both Avram and Ghaith looked at each other before snickering. “Whatever you say, _kafir_!” Ghaith responded jokingly, overlapping with Avram’s comment of “If that makes you happy, my _goy_ friend.”

“Oh fuck off, you damn paynims!” Rico chuckled back. “You heathen-bastards are lucky I have a full-blown Director-authorized pardon from the Supreme Reverend himself not to try and convert you assholes. But if you like I could start spouting the glory of Yeshua and his Disciples and how they spoke to Washington himself on the Eve of the Manhattan Retreat and how the Lord on High swept in a mighty fog to cover his Chosen Warriors of the American Way as they sought ref--”

“Make it stop! Make it stop!” Avram cried melodramatically, grabbing Ghaith’s shoulders before all three of them began to laugh again. “Definitely the worst part about working with Americans,” Ghaith added on. “At least we Arabs only do jizya and let the converts come to us. Although,” he then shifted, eyeing Avram, “it is certainly no worse than working with a Jew who has a sister or a daughter. We get it, you wish to spread your chosen blood, but you’d think your women were autos with how badly you want to sell them off!”

Avram opened his mouth to retort before turning back to the showerhead. His friends just laughed and began to lather and wash themselves properly.

**Φ**

Rico grumbled as he walked through the large indoor park, the windows opened to show the open void, in which distortions of blue and purple can be seen for fleeting moments every so often. The man’s outfit was crisp and pressed, the blue military uniform having not one bit of lint or stray hair, the red trim without a single frayed edge. Even his armband--made up of nine vertical bars of alternating red and white, a blue disk at the center of his upper arm containing a simplified white square-and-compass--was lacking in nary a wrinkle.

With a final note of annoyance and exasperation, he entered the code to the door he now stood before, walking in with his head shaking the entire time. His white hat was placed upon the desk at the front of the lecture hall, and he stood at parade rest, looking upon a sea of confused, curious, and craven faces alike. How he loathed Orientation duty.  “Recruits,” he began, voice booming in the chamber, “I am Colonel Federico Ward, of the National Socialist Republics of America Marine Corps, originating from Timeline 81123. I am the commanding officer of squad Reich 5-1. I am a fascist. I am but one of many diverse and likely strange people you will meet here at the Clocktower. Politics, religion, race, these things are secondary issues, regardless of whatever world you hail from and its norms. I’ll say it now and I’ll say it once; Deal with it. Somehow, someway, find common ground with your squadmates and play nice on coop missions.

“Now I have been asked to explain a few things. Firstly is some of the terminology you will be hearing around base. ‘TL’ is a shortening for Timeline, of which an infinite amount exist, constrained in possibility only by the laws of physics. A ‘tac-purge’ is a tachyon purge. It happens every time a Timeline is altered in a radical fashion, thus creating a truly unique and separate timeline from the one you first entered; that is called facing divergence. If you are caught in a tac-purge, you will die. The tachyons of the Timeline will begin altering and shifting, attempting to purge anything that does not shift into that reality’s new position in space-time; which means us when we’re deployed into a foreign TL. If you want to see the aftermath of being caught in a tac-purge, then I’m afraid you’re out of luck; all that gets left behind is a bit of plasmic residue that eventually degrades in a few minutes. Now, what exactly are we going into TL’s for? To keep them stable, protect valuable assets, and prevent catastrophic events that may impact other TL’s with their resonance; if those who know of our group’s existence are paying of course. More often than not your mission will be to remove or eliminate a stagnant or stagnants (Stags for short); a person who has the ability to cause divergence in their actions, thus stagnating the TL’s potential and bringing about Chaos. We’re right here on the Clocktower, and uh, the Fissure is where it exists, a gap in all of space-time. What else…

“Oh. Deluge is just a term for movement between TL’s, or from TL’s to the Clocktower. We call it that because you feel cold and short of breath, and there’s a weird sound of splashing water whenever you enter or exit.  No I don’t know the science of it all. So. Are there any questions?” he concludes, praying no one raises their hands.

Of course, fate is always cruel, and a single girl raises her hand, to whom Rico weakly points. “Sir, two questions; isn’t it wrong to only help out paying TL’s? And are you really a Nazi?” she asks, proud and righteous fury in her eyes. One look at the red star on her uniform made her alignment clear.

Rico pinched the bridge of his nose, his glasses being shoved up. It was going to be a _very_ long day.


End file.
